Architecture has the power to shape culture and music by the spaces we create.
David Byrne's once in a lifetime lecture from 14 years ago entitled 'How architecture helped music evolve' inspired us at HPW to question how architecture has the power to shape music and culture for better or worse.
As David explores in his TED lecture, different spaces shape various music movements, from the reverberating spaces in Cathedrals inspiring choir music to low reverberation venues informing amplified and more rhythmic music. He explains that some of his music didn't 'work' in certain larger venues as it was written for a different type of space. Architecture and urban design changing over time has shaped how music has evolved and indeed the culture behind it. It is clear that, like music, human behaviour is directly influenced by the space it takes place in.
"The objects, or the form we assign the world, are expressed in our behaviour" (Norberg Schultz in Diaz, 2008, p 76)
The growing demands of sustainability, renewable energy and the constant pressure for profit generation has the potential for designers to be cornered into creating boxes with little architectural value. The rise of Al in design, if used exclusively and carelessly, has the potential to neglect the impact on culture and promote more antisocial human behaviours in our cities. Al would be blind to cultural considerations in design; this is a skillset belonging to artists only.
A positive example of how architecture/urban design has shaped culture is Aldo Van Eyck's post war playgrounds built in bomb sites in Amsterdam.
The country was very aware of the cultural impacts these destroyed sites and life during wartime would have on the children who would grow up there. Over 700 sites were developed transforming the city of war into a city of play. While not all architectural and urban interventions need to be of such scale, all should have the same consideration for the people and culture that will grow in the spaces we design.
Byrne questions whether creatively 'we all make things with a venue, a context, in mind?' We would argue that the context of all of our designs should be culture and in turn, a culture based on kindness and the best human beings have to offer; we do not believe a culture like this will be created using minimum space standards and low investment in early design stages. The designs we create need to consider human behaviour from early lines on paper to handover and beyond.
- Jacob Palmer, Architect, HPW Architecture
Diaz, L. (2008). 5 / The Visual Bias of Structuralism in Architecture.
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF FORM. Retrieved 15 March 2020, from https://theresponsibilityofform.wordpress.com/2015/12/29/5-
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